I would definitely agree that perfectly geometric formations have a limited place, more reserved for auto-pilot, robotic civs, and hiveminds. They should, like other cultural variants be an occasional-and-to-degrees encounter, sometimes being ubiquitous, sometimes nearly non-existent. One of the things about them though is that they can suggest a clearly visible cultural/factional signature, with different cultures/factions adopting different formations.

I would definitely agree that perfectly geometric formations have a limited place, more reserved for auto-pilot, robotic civs, and hiveminds. They should, like other cultural variants be an occasional-and-to-degrees encounter, sometimes being ubiquitous, sometimes nearly non-existent. One of the things about them though is that they can suggest a clearly visible cultural/factional signature, with different cultures/factions adopting different formations.

robotic and hiveminds would more likely use dynamic, more random looking formations because they can create the needed patterns and coordinate themselves much easier.
shifting patterns with capital firing line movements and enemy formation changes.

robotic and hiveminds would more likely use dynamic, more random looking formations because they can create the needed patterns and coordinate themselves much easier.
shifting patterns with capital firing line movements and enemy formation changes.

Why not just have a formation editor in addition to the ship editor? Being able to form arbitrary sized and shaped formations sounds like a good addition to the Supreme Commander/Total War battlefield aspects of game play. 3D geometric placement could be simply a tool. The strategic advantages of such a placement might vary depending on the ships and formation, but just for rule of cool alone I think it's a worthy addition.
If you think the concept is strategically useless, don't employ it, maybe you're right, but maybe 3D Formations in 3D space beyond spherical swarms of ships have advantages and offer tactical/strategic opportunities that aren't immediately obvious, but are fun to discover.

As to the swarms from enders game, having that level of tactical flexibility, where ships can behave so wildly different with wildly different fighting styles depending on the culture/species of origin? That is IMO a dream worth trying to achieve.

Or maybe I'm just smoking some powerful stuff and these fancy formations and organic/crystalline ships that I've been suggesting merely turns LT into a PCG drug trip aid

Challenging your assumptions is good for your health, good for your business, and good for your future. Stay skeptical but never undervalue the importance of a new and unfamiliar perspective.Imagination Fertilizer
Beauty may not save the world, but it's the only thing that can

Like any formation that's pretty context dependent. What ships make up that formation? Is it defensive, offensive, or commercial? How flat or how deep is the formation in the 3rd dimension? Are there other formations of different ships that accompany the swirly helix formation, or is it stand alone?

Perhaps each dot in the swirly helix is a carrier and not shown are the support ships around them. Perhaps each dot its a piece of long distance artillery nesting among a larger fleet and you want to concentrate firepower in the center without leaving your flanks exposed so youre tapering off the firepower density. Perhaps the swirly helix is a very deep formation surrounding a warprail, and each dot represents an automated turret, and the helix formation is a way to encase and defend the rail from all directions.

Is the swirly helix the only way to defend a warprail or concentrate firepower? no. But it's not necessarily better or worse than another formation until proven. Perhaps it's entirely aesthetic and some cultures prefer their fleets to be shaped like helixes and others like their fleets to be cubes of ships others like spheres, others like cones, others like swarms with no real macroscopic organization.

Humans have spent thousands of years developing formations on the relatively 2 dimensional planes of land and sea and found that certain ones give them advantages in some situations.

Challenging your assumptions is good for your health, good for your business, and good for your future. Stay skeptical but never undervalue the importance of a new and unfamiliar perspective.Imagination Fertilizer
Beauty may not save the world, but it's the only thing that can

Perhaps each dot in the swirly helix is a carrier and not shown are the support ships around them. Perhaps each dot its a piece of long distance artillery nesting among a larger fleet and you want to concentrate firepower in the center without leaving your flanks exposed so youre tapering off the firepower density. Perhaps the swirly helix is a very deep formation surrounding a warprail, and each dot represents an automated turret, and the helix formation is a way to encase and defend the rail from all directions.

because cylinders and cones dont exist :V

all variations that would become vaguely helical are interpolations on those that maximally space formation members inside the formation's borders

geometric primitives and density functions create formations that do the same for less thinking and higher flexibility
when theres less or more ships available the rest just adjusts to incorporate them. (either by changing size or by changing their density inside the formation)

Next to the actual positioning at the start of a battle, formation tactics are also concerned about who takes what role, and how they should act and respond (path to traverse, direction to attack, timing, fallback conditions)

All that heavily depends on the abilities and limits of the units and topology.

When the rules of battle and unit stats are known: one could write a simulator that (brute force) tries out different positioning and attack orders against a given enemy.
This (taking best performing) should result in a rather working formation and set of orders for the units.

The best "real world" data might actually come from analyzing formations (or the lack of) of experienced corporations in EvE.

In the end: that might be all overkill for LT.
It would be easier to simply have a set of pretty looking formations (slots to assign units to), to represent different personalities.
-traders in one long "caravan" with support on the flanks
-military in some arrow shape formation
-pirates in a random blob